Saturday, December 15, 2012

the best view in the world

I haven’t
been to this custody suite before. It’s situated miles away, on an industrial
estate the other side of a neighbouring town. It doesn’t seem right, having to
pick our way between the paint supply vehicles, the glazier trucks and paladins,
the bored smokers in plastic bonnets standing outside the sandwich-making factory,
the fork-lifts loading and unloading pallets of stuff, the beeping of reversing
lorries – all to reach the new police custody suite, a low-slung, red-bricked
compound with high wire fences and cameras monitoring our approach.

‘I can’t
believe the cop cars do this every day.’

‘Maybe they
don’t. Maybe it’s like Batman. Maybe there’s a secret entrance somewhere, a
cave with hinged trees that flop to the side.

‘Let’s
hope so.’

We drive
up onto the yellow grid outside the main gates and buzz to enter. When we’ve
been approved, a massive plated door shudders and starts to grind slowly upwards.
After a couple of minutes there’s room enough to drive the ambulance in. Stop
lights, cables, buttons, and a big red sign on the wall saying Please turn off your engine. The door closes
behind us. We climb out and buzz again. After a while, just as the main door
crashes to, a police officer appears from a hidden door. A bright and friendly
guy with an open face topped with a zhuzh of yellow hair, he looks strangely
out of place in these austere surroundings, like a children’s presenter playing
the part of a prison guard.

‘Come
for our boy David?’ he says. ‘Brilliant. This way.’

There
must be a company that specialises in these interiors, because the custody
suite itself is exactly the same as the one back in Helmstone. The same
dirty-blue marmoleum flooring, the same shadowy footprint decals showing the
prisoner where to stand, the same hefty circular command desk, imposingly raised
on a dais, with its screens and cameras and crew of white-shirted
administrators busily inputting, registering, sorting out.

‘This
way.’

‘We
haven’t been told much.’

‘Okay.
So what we have is a twenty-two year old male called David Swift. He was found
sitting on the edge of a multi-storey car park yesterday evening threatening to
jump. Police arrived on scene and talked him down. He was sectioned, brought
here, seen by the Duty Psych. He’s not been violent at all and he’s been
cleared to travel with you without any escort. Don’t know why he came all the
way out here to kill himself. No-one’s been able to figure that one out. But as
he lives in your neck of the woods, they thought it best if he went to
Southview. And there we are! That’s it! I’ll go and fetch him out. Nice lad. Very
smiley.’

Just
before he disappears, he waves across to one of the white-shirted staff, who promptly
unlocks a tall metal cupboard and draws out a holdall wrapped in a large, clear
plastic sack gathered at the top and sealed with a security tag. He dumps it on
the floor at my feet.

‘Sign
here,’ he says.

*

David is
sitting on his seat, studying his mobile phone. Now and again he slowly shakes his
head from side to side, smiling, and sighing and blowing air gently down his
nose, as if he were reading a series of texts from someone who amused and
disappointed him in equal measure.

‘Okay,
David?’ I say. ‘Comfortable?’

He looks
up at me, extending his smile in a blandly disconnected way, then immediately
drops back into his phone.

He hasn’t
said a word since we showed him onto the ambulance. As soon as we’re underway I
restore his belongings to him. He watches me rip open the plastic sack and pull
out the holdall, smiling the whole while. I make a joke about how impossible it
is to break the police seal, but then again that’s probably the whole point. He
tilts his chin up to agree, but doesn’t say anything.

As soon
as he has the bag he locates his phone and checks his messages, whilst I read
through his notes again: two sheets, one handwritten, one typed. The
handwritten sheet is barely legible, sketching out David’s presenting condition
in a scrawl of dry bullet-pointed descriptions, acronyms, arcane scores.The typed sheet is a formal follow up,
referencing the legal aspects of his treatment, the steps that have been taken
and must be taken. Signatures and addresses. A list of the contents of his
holdall.

‘It
shouldn’t take long to get back to Helmstone,’ I say to him.

He
smiles again – a bland and strangely coy expression – then gently puts his
phone back in its sock, and into his pocket. He folds his arms, and stares through
the slatted blinds of the window.

‘Not the
best view in the world from that seat, I’m afraid,’ I say.

And then
I’m struck by the view he must have had from that other seat, the one he took
yesterday evening, high up on the edge of the multi-storey car-park, his legs
dangling over the abyss, the terrible blue canyons of the city beneath him.

He looks
at me intently – and then flinches a little. For a second I wonder if it’s my
comment about the view. But no. He’s already reaching back into his pocket, pulling
out his phone again, intently reading the text that’s just come through.

4 comments:

Life forms on this planet have consistently evolved to suit the circumstances best for their survival.

I'd suggest that human beings will have thumbs the size of a football in 100 years time.

Damned phones are such a pain in the arse.I can't stand people that answer them in the middle of me cutting their hair and then utter banality after banality.The one that REALLY gets my goat are those ignorant gets that insist on talking on their phones when they are being served in a shop.Personally I'd refuse until they hang up.

Apart from that,I'm fine with them....*twitch,twitch*

Started the book Spence.Thoroughly enjoying it so far....

*****PLOT SPOILER*****

Took me back to my first few weeks away at University.No cults though.A few that sounded like that mind.....

I'm always taken aback by the way people will chat on the phone regardless of the situation. A couple of years ago our eldest dog got into a fight and had his ear ripped. We were at the vet's, and Buzz was sedated on the table. The Vet was just about to start suturing, when a phone rang and the nurse let go of Buzz's head, stepped away and started chatting about her plans for the night. The vet made some very urgent 'finger across the throat' signs to her, which she interpreted in a sulky 'call-you-back' kind of way. I don't suppose she lasted much longer (I'm hoping!)

I'm so glad you're enjoying the book, Jacks. I was getting a bit worried, to be honest. I've had 400 downloads so far - but not any feedback! *twitches*

I hope I don't put anyone off going to university. I'll leave that to the government. :)

Thanks v much JM! Take as long as you need. I'll be really interested to know what you think when you're done, though - the negatives as well as the positives!

I've just started re-editing (& finishing) my third book - 'On Calder Hill' - a ghost story for young adults. So far so good (in fact, prob the best thing I've done so far, I think!) Should be out in Jan. :) x